Can We Do More With Plastic Waste?

[Bargepole23 337]

9 hours ago, despritdan said:

It seems insane that all this packaging that lasts for 1,000 years is only used once, then dumped. If all packaging had to be certain standard sizes, it could be washed, sterilized then returned to the packing companies to be used over and over again.

Like returnable glass bottles? There is a negative to using returnable bottles, the increased resources to make them in the first place because they have to be more robust, the resources to clean them, and the increased cost of transport because they are heavier and because they need transporting back.

 

That said, many countries, Germany for example, use returnable PET bottles, for which the same penalties above apply but to a lesser extent. As in most things, the Germans do it better than we do.

 

Returning packaging also means we, the general public, have to clean it and return it somewhere, and we are generally too lazy. A lot of packaging is stretch and shrink films, so impossible to return and re-use, they need to be recycled, if at all possible.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Bargepole23

[Carbuncle 0]

On 02/06/2021 at 21:29, GabrielC said:

But can we cut down  further on the use of plastic in domestic appliances and packaging?

Sir, I must protest, you go too far. Plastic is lovely. Seriously though ...

 

Plastic is often quite the best material for the job. For example, absent those plastic parts, which you have conceded are very durable, our appliances would use more metal and require a whole lot more resource to manufacture. They would also be heavier and thus more expensive to transport and frequently clunkier in form. With something like an appliance, I think the trick is to get the manufacturer to pay upfront for the anticipated cost of disposal encouraging them to make recycling easier at the design stage. Encourage consumers to deliver used appliances to appropriate recycling channels and use the money collected from the manufacturer to incentivize waste companies to recycle. I think some of this happens some of the time already. There some fancy name for this: full lifecycle planning ... oh I don't know.

 

This is all quite complicated. I have a feeling that will generally be the way with recycling with different channels for different products, no one size fits all but a general push for small incremental improvements through innovation.

 

Another example is provided by the supermarket carrier bag. [Somebody asked: these are made from low density polyethylene.] I don't think we should care overly about the embedded resource in the old flimsy plastic bags we were probably using 50x that resource through the burning of petrol on the way to the supermarket. Recycling them may provide an illusory sense of satisfaction but again there is very little embedded resource. I think the 'real problem' were the few escapees that contaminate the environment. Biodegradable carriers came and went: ever found fragmented carrier bag in the back of a cupboard? Those fragments were a real pain to clear up but it may be a better biodegradeable plastic could be developed ... perhaps one that required soil microorganisms rather than merely time to degrade. Enforced price tags and a move to bulkier bags for life seem like progress. Maybe paper carriers are a better route. Its another example of how things are complicated and things can be two steps forward and one step back even on a small part of the front.

 

 

[saywhatnow 33]

On 02/06/2021 at 22:13, Thirsty Relic said:

Another idea - we've all got brown bins for unwanted plastic and tins.  Surely the plastic bags could go in there, and the existing recycling systems collect and send them for reprocessing from there.

Yes I've always thought it odd that the only plastic we can recycle in Sheffield through bin collection is plastic bottles

[Rollypolly 51]

A couple of years ago I bought a lovely scarf from Sainsbury's. It's bright orange, green and cream. It was only when I got it home that I noticed the label says it's made from 100% plastic bottles. It fascinates me because it's so soft and silky.

[spilldig 188]

For years I've been astounded at the number of plastic bottled things like deodorants body lotions  and sprays etc when all that is needed is a bar of soap, and don't get me started on bottled water. Not a thing wrong with tap water.